Trip Report - Presidents Day Weekend

Last edit: trennie01 on Tuesday, 21st February 2017 8:50 amLast response by wpsteel66 16th March 4:08pm

Trip Report for 2/17 to 2/21/17

First official trip report so bear with me. I enjoy reading others, so thought I would share.

We just got back from our first trip as just my wife and I in about 8 years. We usually go with friends of ours twice a year, but this was a solo journey. I received an offer from the Mlife for two free nights and $100 credit. When I booked it, there was an option for the Bellagio suite so I booked it for three nights and they only required payment for part of the last night. I called and confirmed later that we were getting two nights comped and the mlife folks confirmed it. I am by no means a comped Bellagio suite player so there was definitely a glitch in the Matrix that I was able to use.

Friday.
Flight was a little late coming in on Friday night and I was worried about Mccarran being a zoo for presidents day weekend. So I booked a car service with omni limo to skip the line. I didn’t get the car that we requested, but it got us from point A to B. I will never walk the taxi line again. Walked right down to the holding area and away we went. We did mobile check in and it worked great. Walked up and had our key in about 2 minutes. Headed over to Aria and a quick pizza and beer at 550. Still a delicious option at aria. Walked over to the Monte to play for a while and won a few bucks playing craps. The wife won a couple of decent pay outs on her walking dead game.

Saturday.
Woke up on east coast time so the day started a little early for us. Played craps at Aria for a while with some ups and downs in the AM and then headed up to shake shack for lunch. We circled back to Bellagio for a bit to play and ended up about even there. We had reservations at Tender at Luxor for dinner before the George Strait concert. Cabbed it up to Luxor and jumped on a fun table for a bit before our table “was ready.” I know it doesn’t get all the hype of some of the other steakhouses, but we always enjoy it and have the same waiter, Tommy, every time. Had a nice dinner and just enjoyed the atmosphere.

George Strait/T-Mobile Arena.
Amazing is all I will say about the concert. I am not a music buff or guitar player, but that guy is good. No fire, no auto tune, no backing track, just pure talent. If you were ever thinking about going to his limited engagements in the rest of 2017, I encourage it. Now, T-mobile arena needs to work the entrance kinks out and the upper deck should have been configured differently. They only had two people at the doors scanning tickets, but 15 open doors for bag checkers. Bottleneck. The upper deck is STEEP, which is good and bad. Good acoustics in there.

Saturday night.
Walked over to NYNY after the concert to play a little more craps and hopefully ride the post concert fun train/momentum. That quickly came to a halt as I forgot how much I hate playing there. I dropped the mlife card and cash on to the table and it all came back to me. They have to be the surliest dealers on the strip. Not sure what their deal is. Left there and headed back to home base at Bellagio. Tables were a bit too high for my bank roll, so I wandered over to the Cromwell. Played there on a relatively open table til about 3:30am and crawled back across the bridge.

Sunday.
Slept in and headed to Mon Ami for our traditional Sunday Breakfast. I was not as happy as we normally are with the product. Service was great, but the food seemed a bit off. Wife mentioned it first, and she loves the place. Stayed on that side of the street for a bit and walked down to the Linq area to scout for our June trip. Popped in to Royale for some nostalgia. It doesn’t smell as bad as it used to. Popped in to the Mirage for a quick sit down slot session with the mrs. and no luck there. Back to Bellagio for a nap before setting off for dinner at Javiers at Aria. Really good and looking forward to going back. Played there for a while and never really had much fun at the tables so we moved on the Monte and had some good people at the table that made losing bearable.

Assorted findings.
1) WAY too many little kids in vegas this trip. I’m not talking about the tournament teams for sports, but little ones and odd hours of the night.
2) Saw a few more “character” actors and entertainers on the streets and walk ways this time around.
3) Rain and the escalators don’t go well together. Not one of them was working while we were there.
4) No comment on parking issues, since we just cabbed it
5) Drink service anywhere we played was actually better than most recent trips.
6) Even though I got my room sorta comped at Bellagio, I won’t go out of my way to stay there again. They need to find a way to configure that main walk way to accommodate the zombie hoards of Walkers that clog that area. It’s just too crowded. Also, I think Bellagio is starting to show her age. Little things like pealing wall paper, our door was sort of off and there was a gap in the window vent that i had to shove the entertainment guide in to keep it from whistling all night. With that said, our room was phenomenal. And being on the suite floors makes a difference as I think I saw two people in the hall the whole time. Never heard a peep.
7) Igor, our car service driver, told us that uber/lyft is killing them to the point that he might go back to making sandwiches.
8) The walk from aria to monte in the “street of dreams’ looks like the setting to a horror movie. They tried to spice it up with the posters and cute sayings, but just straight plywood and fluorescent lightings.
9) Most of the staff we interacted with were very pleasant sans the NYNY craps crew. Dealers, staff, hotel folks.
10) Headed back in June for our anniversary trip/CPA conference in June and am looking forward to getting back to Aria.

Bad craps dealers piss me off. I never had a problem at NYNY while I was staying there, but that was 10 years ago... Your etiquette seems fine; it's what I do, tho I usually wait til the shooter sevens out, tho that depends on the game. But getting your money back? Wtf? Did they ask you to do it differently?

Sorry, poor sentence structure. Miss Tucci from English would be disappointed in me. No, I always wait until the action had stopped to buy-in, unless there is a serious delay in action. I felt the the feeling of "why did i just buy in to this game" come back to me since they bascically just grabbed my money and card and handed me chips. No good evening or good luck.

wpsteel66 responded on Thursday, 16th March 2017

Thanks for the trip report and details...always good to hear of others' experiences and learn of some new things to do/see/go to when in Vegas...I never thought about seeing George Strait, but will give it a thought...unfortunate to hear of your bad NYNY dealer interactions...they have provided me good service in the past.

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